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Airforce, police clash: How MOPOL�s planned reprisal attack was foiled
ROTIMI WILLIAMS
Last week�s face-off between men of the Airforce and those of the Nigerian police at Ikeja, Lagos, would have degenerated into a full scale bloody battle between the two security agencies, but for the prompt intervention of the Governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Inspector General of Police, (IG) Mr. Tafa Balogun, and the state�s Commissioner of Police, (CP), Mr. Israel Ajao.
The intervention of the authorities was said to have aborted the plan by the Mobile Police (MOPOL) unit to launch a bloody reprisal attack on the men of the Air Force at the Ikeja base, who had allegedly molested some of their members.
Last Tuesday, some Police officers who had the misfortune of passing the front of the Air Force base along Lagos-Abeokuta express road, were allegedly accosted and beaten to a state of stupor by some men of the Nigerian Air Force.
Though, there were no immediate indications as to why the attacks were carried out, it was gathered later that the Air Force men were venting their anger over the alleged death of their colleague from a gun shot by a yet to be known police officer. The unknown officer was said to be part of a team that went to arrest some hoodlums opposite the Air Force base.
Sunday Punch, however, gathered that men of the MOPOL from three different squadrons, whose men were allegedly beaten to a state of coma, had got themselves together, waiting for the approval of Mr. Ajao, to launch a reprisal attack on the men at the Ikeja Air Force base.
But the attack was not to be, as Governor Tinubu and Mr. Balogun, who was outside the country as at the time the mayhem was unleashed, got in touch with each other and gave instructions to the Police authorities in Lagos on how the matter could be solved diplomatically.
Tinubu was said to have promptly made arrangements for 10 ambulances to convey the affected police officers from the Air Force base, where they were allegedly detained, to the hospital. He was said to have also given instructions to medical experts at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital to promptly attend to the molested officers.
On his side, the Lagos CP repeatedly visited the bases of the MOPOL at odd hours and ensured that the men were dissuaded from holding meetings on how to attack the Air Force base. He also held meetings with the injured officers behind close doors on Friday evening at the State�s Police headquarters, appealing to them to consider what happened as �a professional hazard.�
Sunday Punch gathered that the CP also unfolded plans to compensate the officers financially. The affected officers, according to sources, were then asked to fill insurance compensation forms, with a promise that (they) the forms would get the immediate approval of the IG so that the officers could be paid some money.
Though the actual amount each officer would get could not be ascertained, the insurance policy provides that officers from the rank of the Constable to Inspector could be paid between N250,000 and N500,000 in the case of injury or death while on duty.
Meanwhile, the Police authorities have recovered the service pistol belonging to one of the personal aides of former Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Aliyu Attah, who was said to have been attacked during the face-off. The hoodlums, whose arrest culminated in the fracas that led to the death of the Air Force officer, were also said to have escaped with police handcuffs after they were reportedly set free by some Air Force officers.
When contacted on phone, Ajao, who refused to be drawn into any comment over the issue, said the two security agencies were working towards finding a lasting solution to the crisis. �We are brothers,� he said, noting that �we cannot fight each other.�
The Public Relations Officer of the Airforce, Wing Commander Emeka Ozoemena, had on Thursday stated that a trigger-happy police man, who shot and killed an Air Force man during a police raid on alleged hoodlums caused the incident. He, however, denied that his men were involved in the beating of the police officers.
He queried: �Are the men of the Nigerian Police given gun to kill and maim innocent citizens? Even when a criminal is caught, the law court is there to try the accused and give judgement.�
While alleging that some area boys were the ones who attacked the police officers Ozoemena said: �Nobody sent them. They are not our men. We could not have asked them to go and attack the police men. We were only trying to help them by treating the wounded police officers�.
Sunday Punch, July 11, 2004
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